Odometer Trivia

[Captain Obvious]

Not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but I learned something neat about the odometer today. You see five digits when you look at the odometer, but there are actually six digits available. There is a "tenths" digit on the odometer that is screened by the hole in the speedo face.

Here's the front. There are five digits:

And here's the guts. There are six digits, and the extra one is tenths:

Who knew!?!

[Fred Sigarto]

You learn something everyday ... never knew that

[EhlersRS]

That's interesting Bruce! I wonder why Nissan decided not to make the tenths digit visible? I'm not old enough to know when cars switched to displaying 6 full digits, but I'm assuming this was common practice. The tenths digit must have only served to increment the other digits.

Robert S.

[EScanlon]

Hopefully I'm not stepping on Capt. Obvious's setup, but I think the reason for NOT showing the tenths digit on the LOWER odometer readout, is because the UPPER TRIP odometer readout has the tenths as part of it's 4 digits.

2¢

E

[psdenno]

I'm always amused by why there are odometer measurements in tenths of a mile. Typical road signs warn of upcoming exits in quarter mile increments (1/4, 1/2, 3/4), not tenths of a mile increments which can be measured by the available instrument. Why the discord between automotive engineers and highway engineers?

Would it be so difficult to move a quarter mile warning sign a little farther from the exit and have it read "Next Exit 3/10 Mile"?

Dennis

[LeonV]

I'm always amused by why there are odometer measurements in tenths of a mile. Typical road signs warn of upcoming exits in quarter mile increments (1/4, 1/2, 3/4), not tenths of a mile increments which can be measured by the available instrument. Why the discord between automotive engineers and highway engineers?

Would it be so difficult to move a quarter mile warning sign a little farther from the exit and have it read "Next Exit 3/10 Mile"?

Dennis

Quarter-mile, two furlongs, 440 yards, 1320 feet, 15840 inches. Bah!!!

An engineer would want everything in the metric system, but that takes some getting used to for the general populus.

[Kurbycar32]

An engineer would want everything in the metric system, but that takes some getting used to for the general populus.

I would bet money that if you switched to selling gasoline by the liter for $1.25 each, half the population would throw a party thinking gas was finally cheap again.

(For those not hip to the metric system that makes gasoline about $4.73 a gallon)

[Captain Obvious]

Yeah, I'm with E. I figure they felt they didn't need to show the tenths since the trip-O includes that. Just seemed funny to me that it was in there at all! Go through all that effort just to cover it up?

The tenths digit does increment the 1's digit, and the assy (as designed) would not work without the tenths. Makes me think there were other vehicles that used the same assy that did show it. Something without a trip-O maybe?

When I opened that thing up and saw six digits, my first thought was that there was a hidden 100K digit in there. And that would have been more than trivia. That would have been big news!! No more guessing how many times it rolled over!

You know... With some modifications to the mounting tabs to make them a little wider, I bet I could add a 100K's digit to that thing... :bulb:

[Reverend]

I think the tenths were originally made for KM/H odometer. You know its a "little" easier to understand than inch/mile etc